I’ve been known to say from time-to-time that “Things always work out.”

A good friend asked me the other day, “Do you mean that as in life – like life in general will work out? Or do you mean ‘Things always work out’ in the entertainment business?”

I thought for a second. And then realized, well, yes, first in life, it all works out. Always. In the end. And if it hasn’t worked out yet, you’re just not at the end.

But “working out” doesn’t mean without challenges. Or getting everything you always wanted. Or that life won’t hand you a number of obstacles you have to overcome.

And that’s a metaphor for the business as well. Your career is never going to look like you thought it would. Ever. Your way into acting and the path it takes you on and all you can learn from it is going to be much more expansive – if you let it be – than you could’ve ever imagined when starting out.

I think the tricky thing about things working out in “the business” is that it requires you to say a hearty “yes” to a life in the arts while at the same time giving up all expectations moment-to-moment of what you feel it “should” be.

But in order for things to work out you have to take the leap into the unknown to begin with. If you’re brave enough to go where your heart leads you and embrace the truth that your trajectory is going to be littered with failures and rejections, victories and “almost’s” – that it’s often going to make you question whether it’s all worth it, you will also find a quiet satisfaction in knowing that you are truly doing what you need to be doing with your life – At. This. Time.

And by going all in in and taking the risk, “the universe will open doors where there were only walls,” as Joseph Campbell says. In being open on your journey, you may discover you have so many other passions and talents involved in creating that are tiny tributaries all connected to your original desire to act.

There would be zero access to these worlds if you didn’t say yes to your original desire.

So having faith that things will work out when you follow your bliss isn’t Pollyanna-ish-talk. It’s truth. But it also requires sensitivity to how other possibilities and insights can come out of our initial desire (to act) when we begin our creative journeys.

So being open – and making a commitment – to a career as an actor can show you so much about your life.

It’s not a call into acting. It’s a call into life. And a call to be more human.

It’s not a profession. It’s a way of being.

It’s not about a job. It’s about expressing oneself.

It’s not about character. It’s about you.

It’s not about having it all together and being perfect and not failing. It’s about sharing your fallibility and vulnerability and courage and fears.